City Council Meeting   2/21/2012

Let's start with the video

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Mr. Norris?

Ms. Galvin?

I will ask Dede Smith to read African American History Month.

and to make all citizens aware of the significance of the achievement of African Americans in our community and throughout this country and urge all citizens to mark this month by supporting and encouraging the efforts of all interested groups and organizations.

Are there other announcements?

And meet me on Saturday at 2 o'clock at the Free Speech Wall.

Kristin Szakos, do you have a few more announcements?

So I urge people to come.

Mr. Norris, do you have some announcements?

So please consider applying.

Ms. Galvin.

Because I could read this out but it's always also very easy to read it somewhere.

I believe it is on our website, but I can double check on it.

Hope people consider applying.

Mr. Secretary, did you have anything to talk about Jefferson School?

Thin mints and caramel delights.

Mr. Jones, do you have any announcements about the budget hearings dates?

Thank you.

Now it's my turn to forget what time, but it's 6 or 6.30 and it's online.

And if you will take a minute also to indicate the activities which are going on this month, if you know them.

250th anniversary.

So I'll pass it over to the mayor.

We feel like it's finally really rolling.

If you don't have a list, I have a list for you.

Let's see, that is February 25th.

I don't know.

Thank you very much.

Are we involving our sister cities in any way in the 250th anniversary celebration?

I don't know personally the answer, but it's something that I've been told we are, but I don't know if anyone... Because I'd love to at least invite them to the event.

We would hope they would be included in the gala in November if nothing else.

Mr. Tolbert will you read them, who they are?

Charlie is here.

Please stand up so we can see who you are.

a company here in town that does work on sustainable development projects, energy efficiency and has done a great job in that work and in the neighborhood development services staff member of the year Missy Creasey our planning manager was recognized for the work primarily for the work she does every day but particularly for the work she's been doing on the one community one plan effort.

The first person to sign up is Mr. Finazio.

That includes the hardware store, Miller, and the nook.

Pretty much it was a photo more or less.

Anyway, he says, are you on the fire lane?

Well, you know, it was not my mistake.

And somebody got to move over.

Could you wrap it up?

and I want you to know that I've been discriminated against.

The other day I attended a meeting of some

What was that institution?

Are you using this thing?

Yes, I am.

Thank you very much.

Laura Donohue.

Thank you for your time.

We will have to stand up as a community against the war on drugs for that vision of peace to be realized.

Stacy Norris

points of contention, so I won't go into any of those here, but I do thank you for your time tonight and for your service to the community.

but I will add there's one more tugboat and it's the people and as the people have voted on this and shown their desire for a different solution know that you have the people's support in that solution so please support just the application for this grant they can help find a better solution for the city thank you Julia Williams

Good evening.

So please make that available to yourselves.

Thank you.

So I would urge you to support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Kyle Benson

Thank you for your time and happy Mardi Gras.

Sorry I messed up your last name for sure.

We can study this and I think leave a better lasting legacy than what's really there now so thanks.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Council.

So as you heard from a few other people, I'm here to talk a little bit about the Belmont Bridge in the wake of the competition.

And from there, the money's going to help you decide how to do that.

so thank you absolutely this is the last speaker for this time then you'll have a chance to speak again at the end of the meeting the responses by the city council members and all the people who have spoken I'd be happy to start

I won't go a whole lot into what you said, except when you were talking about a commission being just for one division of races, I think that one of the reasons that the commission was being considered was because it was for lots of different discrimination, not just race and not just one or two races.

And we don't write the newspaper articles.

I also know that the same Dylan Rule that keeps us from doing

Thanks for joining us.

The design thing.

There's a lot more things I think that the public needs to hear.

Thank you all for everything that Mr. Wymer and School of Architecture and the community members who supported that.

And we'll talk about the bridge later, but I think the speaker's made a very compelling case for why we might consider this grant opportunities.

Ms. Faye, would you please read the Consent Agenda?

And item L, resolution funding support for Charlottesville Honor Ride, $480, first of one reading.

Are there items which any members of council would like to take, pull out, or other options if you may not want to pull out but want to make a comment about it, that would be fine too.

And I just wondered, do we have a specific plan for, and I understand why not, because it would be empty for a long time and that's fine, but what is our plan for making sure that there is transitional housing available when it is needed for public housing redevelopment?

So we would anticipate that as we get closer to CRHA redevelopment and its reality and or they're doing a plan for the other program that we'll come in with a way to have one unit that would be built in something else that we do.

And the other question is not so much directly you, but the CDBG process, I just noticed that it said no public comment had been received, and I just want to make sure that there is public, a procedure for kind of public input into that whole project.

that have reviewed, and you actually, you approved the project last time, but it's gone through that process, so there has been involvement by the public, especially those that live right around there.

Alright, that was all I had.

Any other comments or questions?

When Blue Ridge Commons was in the process of undergoing major revitalization, did it ever occur to anyone to think about this as a more of a neighborhood approach to look at it more comprehensively so that we would be thinking about mixed income, mixed use, so that it's a much more viable, sustainable community?

I think that

So it's a different way of looking at this problem, I hope, and I believe it will be.

And this is a funding opportunity to do that.

So there will be more of a mix than there is now.

And I'm very glad to hear that the next stream for this particular development will be allowing us to do some of that.

It will give a greater mix, it won't be the market rate, but it will be a greater mix within those units.

If not, is there a motion?

I'll second.

At Church Street, Mr. Craig Brown, are you going to make a presentation?

This is an ordinance that's presented tonight for first reading and Mr. Mayor, public hearing is required and has been advertised.

Discussion by the council members.

How did this house get sold with that encroachment?

Almost every year, when I was a plane injector, at least two, three times, I had to change the platter, since so many.

So is the fact that it got caught this time an indication that we're doing a better job?

Bankers who get loans, they must have done a better throwaway to find out.

Older neighborhoods like Belmont where I think a lot of if not the houses then the appurtenances like garages or sheds were built without a lot of Careful attention to exactly where the property line was and I suspect that's that's what's happened here Did the owners build the shed or the current owners or do they buy it?

I don't know Yes, please clarify

I wasn't going to speak but I might be able to answer some of this.

So it's gotten by

Not the current owners.

This is sort of irrelevant, but the owners moved to San Francisco and hope to move back to Charlottesville and their first child was born today.

Today?

Yeah, they're calling it a fact too.

I'm not really sure how to factor that into it, but as I say, it's just more of an even treatment that I'm concerned about.

As far as I can remember, we have always asked for the assessed value of the encroachment land.

Maybe somebody could clarify that.

There's a motion in the blank which says it's up to council to decide.

Yeah, I do think it's been somewhat inconsistent just from different councils in the past that had different philosophies or approaches about how to handle what is a, as I say, not an uncommon issue.

Is there any problem to why we can't just use the assessor's estimate for fair market value?

We can certainly propose that to the owners.

I'm not opposed to giving selling that land to them.

I would agree with that.

And I do like Smith's notion of that.

Well they're getting 800 square feet of land, not too many people are going around getting free land.

But if we're going to get free here and pay there, that's just messy.

I mean, obviously, that's what it is.

just by adding 819 feet square feet to it.

And yet he's the one who's saying that it's worth $244 a foot.

Right.

I'd just like to add too that it is a benefit to the owners because as it says the encroachment is an impediment to the sale of the property so in the future if they wanted to sell this would come up again and this way it cures the encroachment.

I mean isn't wouldn't title insurance

But did they have title insurance when they bought it?

I don't know.

I've got to say, because their baby was born, I was inclined to give it to them for nothing.

We don't have, as Mr. Brown said, we don't have a practice of deciding one way or another in cases like this, and I think we should work with them on their request.

We're not asking for exorbitant rate.

As I said I have sympathies with that and if we had done it all along I would you know it's not that much land but I just think it opens us up to making much greater decisions later on so I just think it makes a lot of sense to if this comes up with people that they just compensate the city for the land that the city owns.

Is that your motion?

I move that we, how would this motion show?

If I may, Ms. Smith, you can move the ordinance with the insertion of $2,000 in the blank where it recites the compensation and I'm going to say your motion for you, $2,000 is what the city assessor said it was worth.

Is what is in here, right.

Discussion on the motion?

Would it be possible to make this the policy from here on in that we just use the fair market value?

You can't control the future councils but we can make policy for ourselves.

I do agree with Ms. Smith on that one.

Is this the first reading?

It will now carry over to the next reading.

Mr. Tolbert, will you be making a presentation?

This item, do you want me to have it or?

Go ahead, I'll jump in later.

There are annually 5 to 10 people killed in the United States, humans killed by deer.

How many are killed by lightning?

A lot.

Probably a lot more than fiber.

Again, I'm not making an argument that that's a problem.

I'm just saying that's one of the issues we've identified.

an education program I don't think and so we would suggest that that be done no matter what but this was just basically provided at the council's request to get you a little background so you could begin thinking about what the possibilities are and what you might want to do or not do so be glad to entertain any questions.

Any questions for Mr. Stover before we discuss ourselves?

I would also mention that in addition to the public hearing I would recommend that if council decides to move forward with a process by which we're looking at ways of addressing the deer population that we also have community meetings with the neighborhoods who we heard from before because we were hearing from a lot of the folks who are in favor of doing something and we have not heard from folks who are opposed to it aside from the emails that we've been receiving over the course of the last few days or so.

Who wants to start the session?

But he actually say, you know, it's not just for deer.

There's actually a lot of pests out there that we either have to learn to live with or whatever.

It's always good.

Who else would like to speak?

So that would be my preference.

And if they can give us some strategies on how to do the education that will facilitate matters, I think it's a great idea.

So I would like to maybe have us look for next year's legislative session to see if we could get something like that, you know, tee it up now, so that if we choose to do that, it would be available to us so we don't have to wait another, you know, session after that.

I would never dream of doing this.

I'm not a big fan of shooting deer, but I think that we need to know if this is an issue that we need to respond to and I don't think we can really respond until we know that.

So I think it is not even worth pursuing lethal methods.

But, you know, I just think we need to proceed carefully with what we promise to.

If you want to have a deer survey, I would not oppose that, if that would be a useful exercise.

That could be done in the legislative process I think that would be very important

To see what kind of research they have access to.

So there should be clear to our audience that cities are interested in using lethal means to deal with it, dearest least.

Has that been done?

This site that I think I sent it out to you all had shown really promising results, much more effective than sterilization.

There was some promising, because they were part of a Cornell study.

They're polygamous and so you'd have to do fewer of them and only once.

Who's presenting that today?

Thank you.

Members of Council and City Manager Jones, I'm Gertrude Ivey, one of the co-chairs for the Dialog on Race Steering Committee.

The steering committee and staff created media resources for the community and videos that created interviews with Alicia Lugo, Donald Martin, and Paul Gaston, created a video about the Charlottesville 12 events, and a video about the Achievement Gap forums.

We currently have two groups of study circles who will soon complete their work and join already existing action teams with new ideas and energy.

Thank you.

Any discussions or comments?

It's going to happen on Memorial Day, I believe?

Charlene is part of 250.

Charlene's right here.

It depends on if we get a perfect storm of the presenters that we're interested in bringing to town and utilizing the resources that we have here to make something happen.

Yes.

We have a lot of activity happening.

But anyway, I would really like to see somebody play that role.

Is there a vehicle for addressing something like that in the meantime?

It's not easy, but I think we just have to talk to each other and create some action.

We've had a couple of meetings talking about what the next steps would be in addressing that and so hopefully we'll have more information for you on that study in particular and the issues that were raised out of that hopefully in the next month or so.

And I just feel like that's been kind of off and on.

So I think that would be one big shining star for me if we could look at that together as a city and a DOR and our economic folks.

And so I'm hoping to see the new steering committees with new people added will take new ideas to work on it.

Any other questions or comments?

Next is a report by TMD Elbow.

Did you want to get started on that immediately or did you have some introductory remarks?

I love that ring.

Hi, can you hear me okay now?

And I apologize ahead of the time, several of you heard this presentation within the last week, but for the benefit of those folks listening, I thought I'd provide just a little bit of background and context.

Can I just, before you start, just because there's a lot of alphabet soup in it and you did a great job with the TMDL, whenever you hit something, all caps,

And I'm happy to answer any questions, but that's that.

Does at any point, is anyone measuring how much nitrogen, phosphorus, or sediment is anywhere?

So it's jurisdictional and watershed boundaries are kind of overlapping and who and where you measure isn't obvious.

for a, say for a rain garden, you get a certain number of points or something for areas.

Using this kind of practice, it's this many acres and when you add them all up, we're not there yet, but we're moving.

It's kind of a giant three dimensional Sudoku.

So do we know that we get credit for what's happened in the last three years since their last data?

is being aggregated at the state level and so that Charlottesville, for example, doesn't have a discrete numeric number against which it's being measured until such time that a permit gets renewed and some numeric points may work their way into there.

Are we being penalized because we did a lot of things before 2009 when they set 2009 as the baseline?

what might we need to be thinking about moving forward because we're never going to win the debate about something that wasn't counted for before.

like Smart Growth dictates from a watershed scale.

So even if this weren't happening, those regulations have been undergoing revision for the last two, three years with some of the adjustments having been made exactly for the point that you're bringing up, that it was too much, somewhat

They serve in a larger area.

but that's in its evolution now.

Okay, we just need to track that.

And the things that were put in attachment three are largely things that are already in place so this LID checklist was a program that NDS has put in place several years back really to promote low-impact development and stormwater management voluntarily prior to the next wave of regulations.

I still think that's something that we all need to be very aware of

and things that count in this accounting system.

You have green roofs, you have so many...

You have to fit it in another category and over time it should kind of develop it.

Okay.

That's the research you've done.

We're in good hands, I think.

Next item on the agenda, the last SPCA presentation by Suzanne Cote.

This is just going to take me a moment to set up, and I always have a PowerPoint question.

You would expect that there would be dogs from an SPCA person somewhere, right?

So this is really a little video that's a tribute to the community.

Thank you for being a Thank you for being a friend I wanna thank you Thank you for being a friend I wanna thank you Thank you for being a friend

Thank you, thank you for being

I have a short video to show you now about some of the programs that we did to meet this, and I should say that this was actually produced by the City of Charlottesville, Joe Rice and Rick Berwick, and we all did this together and I think it's a wonderful video.

with these efforts we also build partnerships with other non-profits like Habitat for Humanity in the Southwood community.

A lot of people got their animals fixed because of this program because it usually costs so much money

and having that kind of partnership is invaluable.

SPCA staff member Heather Sullivan is also heading up our new community CAT campaign, an aggressive spay-neuter program that relies on specific data to target heavy kitten populations.

So then we're turning around and going back into these neighborhoods, even doing door-to-door projects to get all the animals in that jurisdiction and that zip code state of neuter.

People like Randy Coffee.

One or two maybe, but not eight.

The Community CAT Program has taken Heather to diverse areas around town, even to the Albemarle County Jail and the Juvenile Detention Center.

Well, initially there was concern at the detention center where I work because the CAT population was growing and it was obvious that it was growing, so something needed to be done to control the population.

He also didn't know how to trap, he had never done it before, so me and him worked together to get this done over here.

Thank you.